Mark Shields Thinking Quotations

I think any advocate who is effective has fully acquainted himself or herself with the legislator they are going to meet. Know what committees they are on, what issues they are interested in, all in an effort to build a bridge for communicating with them.

I think Democrats ought to be concerned, that the party has become almost prideful about the college-educated vote that it's getting, the support that Hillary Clinton is getting against Donald Trump.

Stronger together is, I think, a preposition and a comparative adjective, but it's not really an action verb or what it is.

I think this was as good a Democratic Convention [ this was my 24th convention] as I have seen since the 1976 convention, which nominated Jimmy Carter.I just thought it was a spectacularly successful convention. I don't think Hillary Clinton's speech was spectacular, but I don't think she's a spectacular speaker.

I think the Republican Party is cursed. And it's cursed itself.

I think Donald Trump is obviously the more colorful, the more flamboyant, the more dominant personality.

Hillary Clinton should get a bounce out of her convention, I mean a bounce in the polls. I think it's probably conceded that Donald Trump got about a three-point bounce out of his conventions. He's closed the gap that much.

I think that the people that are publicly on Hillary Clinton's short list all are very congenial people. They're not people with personality or Captain Queeg problems.

We're not being invaded by undocumented immigrants who are coming to kill police officers and commit crimes. And I don't think most Americans think it's true.

In a strange way, Hillary Clinton was helped and victimized by Barack and Michelle Obama.Michelle Obama was probably better than Barack Obama, if you think about it.Her speech is a masterful, masterful speech. And she delivered it in a persuasively conversational tone.

I think she [Hillary Clinton] would be far superior to President [Barack] Obama, who is basically remote, aloof and not involved with - he doesn't deal with members of Congress.

[Hillary Clinton] showed, while in the Senate, that ability to connect and reach across and to forge alliances. I think she will be better [than Barack Obama]. But I think the problem with connecting emotionally with the people remains at large is - in a wholesale way.

I think that "Arabs coming out in droves" is so violative Jewish values that non-Jews admire so much about Jewish people throughout history, of welcoming the stranger, of standing up for the outsider, of defending the marginalized. This was classic us against them. This was the narrowest and meanest of politics, to which Jews, sadly and tragically, around the world have been subjected to.

As long as Republicans won't - won't raise taxes and as long as Democrats won't in any way make entitlements based on need, rather than just across the board, I really think that we're doomed to this deadlock.

I don't think he should make foreign policy on the basis of peak,but I don't think it can be overstated that Israel has been an embattled democracy that has enjoyed the bipartisan and overwhelming support of Americans. It has been a moral force.

I think Guantanamo, has been synonymous with the staining of American values and American legal tradition.

The failure to invest in our public transportation and public life, I think, is a scandal and a shame, and it should be a national embarrassment.

For many years, we have had these campaign finance reforms, and they have been failures. Money is more coursing through our system than ever before. Incumbents have used the laws to advantage themselves. And one of the reasons I think they have been failures is we have tried to crush down the money in places like the political parties, and it has squished out into opaque super PACs and sort of hidden channels.

Ronald Reagan four times accepted the limits in contributions of what he could take, what he could spend, and the public funding for the general elections. So I just think the idea that it didn't work, and didn't work - it did work. It worked brilliantly.

The way to solve all the money in politics is not to pretend we can get money out of politics. That will never happen. We have to channel it in ways where we can see it and hold it accountable. And I think the parties are the best vehicle for that.

They're still a subject beholden to special interests, but at least they have a national constituency. At least they have to think about national majorities.